you've got these no longer emerging countries, china and india, brazil. america's status as the sole super power is in real peril, isn't it? >> it is. the world has changed a lot in that regard, and i think in some ways it feels like we're at that pivot of empire moment when the arc is a little downward. there's a sort of dislocation and apprehension about that that is one of the things being manifested in washington with all this bickering and all this gridlock. we have got to become more mature in washington certainly, and we've got to become more reasonable if we're going to get through this moment and have a country as strong on the far side of it as we had coming into it. >> i liked your column about the sort of lack of ambition when you see the space travel being dramatically reduced and that kind of dream ending. i think, when you and i were younger, you remember these amazing explorations into space, and they were fantastically ambitious and exciting, and they kind of motivated everybody. what worries me about what's going on now is everything's b